Duchamp du signe: - ECRITS

by Marcel Duchamp, Michel Sanouillet (Editor)

"En 1913, j'eus l'heureuse ide de fixer une roue de bicyclette sur un tabouret de cuisine et de la regarder tourner. A New york en 1915, j'achetai dans une quincaillerie une pelle neige sur laquelle j'crivis : "En prvision d'un bras cass" (in advance of a broken arm). Il est un point que je veux tablir trs clairement, c'est que le choix de ces ready-mades ne me fut jamais dict par quelque dlectation esthtique. Ce choix tait fond sur une raction d'indiffrence visuelle, assortie au mme moment une absence totale de bon ou mauvais got, en fait une anesthsie complte".

318 pages, Pocket Book

First published September 27, 1994

About the author

Marcel Duchamp (also known as Rrose Sélavy) was a French artist (he became an American citizen in 1955) whose work and ideas had considerable influence on the development of post-World War I Western art, and whose advice to modern art collectors helped shape the tastes of the Western art world.

While he is most often associated with Dada and Surrealism, his participation in Surrealism was largely behind the scenes, and after being involved in New York Dada, he barely participated in Paris Dada.

Thousands of books and articles attempt to interpret Duchamp's artwork and philosophy, but in interviews and his writing, Duchamp only added to the mystery. The interpretations interested him as creations of their own, and as reflections of the interpreter.

A playful man, Duchamp prodded thought about artistic processes and art marketing, not so much with words, but with actions such as dubbing a urinal "art" and naming it Fountain. He produced relatively few artworks as he quickly moved through the avant-garde rhythms of his time.

Reviews

[heyyonicki · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolument exceptionnel. Les notes sur le grand verre donnent à lire une explosion d'images plus ou moins abstraites mais toujours très poétiques et visuelles. On prend la mesure de la place qu'avait l'écriture dans l'œuvre de Duchamp, avec des jeux de mots très intelligents ou d'autres brèves dada divertissantes. Comparé aux Notes by Marcel Duchamp, celui-ci m'a beaucoup plus marqué, alors que le premier que j'avais lu il y a quelques années m'avait déjà fait une forte impression. Clairement le genre de livre que j'emmènerais sur une île déserte.

[Alyosha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Being wholly honest (and why not be? Should not everyone be?...), no one genuinely cares about the word games and literary playfulness of the snatches of writing signed "Rrose Salevy." This book is worth its price (and more?) simply for the reproduction of the written materials comprising the "Green Box" and the "White Box" alone - that is, the written components of the work that is La Mariée mise à nu par ses célibataires, même. These writings are indispensable if one wishes to engage with Duchamp's "Large Glass," as they are not written supplements for interpreting the work, nor are they simply plans for the work's construction. Instead, the written elements are part of the work itself - for the work of this work of art is not suspended either in the glass nor in the written texts. The work takes place, and takes its place, in the suspension of a beyond which can only be alighted upon through the glass, as it were (while the written element is a reflection of the glass, though not "in" the glass, per se). The inscription on high, invisible or absent in the glass itself, is no more to be read in these writings. But this inscription may be "read" in the working (ever suspended) which occurs through the interrelation of the glass and the writings, expressed in the faltering and the (necessary) incompletion of each. The work remains, invisible, naked, ever yet to be stripped bare (if anyone can do so without hanging themselves by the same pendulum-rope...).

[fer veganda · Rating 3 out of 5]

read in Spanish. me gustó Textículos.